“He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary. ‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’ he used to say. ‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to.’”
J.R.R. Tolkien
My friends Catherine and Joe in Jordan. The three of us we were known as the "Three Musketeers"
I can only start my final freshman blog by looking back at my first blog post, written a year ago, “Midway on Our Life’s Journey”. In it I compared my college application process to Dante’s Inferno, revealed that I had no idea what I was going to do in college, and made a lot of jokes about going to a Catholic high school. The blog ended like this:
“No matter what I decide to do, I will forever be one of the lucky ones. I will make the absolute most of what I’ve just been handed: a four-year golden ticket to wherever I chose. I’m not stuck in Limbo anymore. I know where I’m headed next.”
When I wrote that blog, I had no idea how weird my friends would be.
When I wrote that I had no idea what this year would be like. I had no idea that I’d make so many new friends in every team and extracurricular I joined. I had no idea that I’d ride down rapids. I had no idea that I’d be writing a blog trying to explain what my freshman year was like as I finished up three final essays and projects, packed my things into storage, and shopped online for clothing appropriate for a summer in Salalah, Oman and a fall in Washington, D.C..
I suppose one could make the argument that this time last year I didn’t know where I was going, and that in writing the blog I was simply being an optimistic little 18 year old who had, truthfully, no idea what she was getting herself into. I only found out I was selected as a State Department Critical Language Scholar and going to Oman this summer in mid-March, and only found out in mid-April that I received an Aitchison Public Service Fellowship in Government and was going to be living/interning in D.C. this fall instead of staying on the Homewood Campus. One can further argue that I don’t know where I’m studying abroad in the coming semesters, that I don’t know if I’ll try to apply to the 5 year BA/MA program with SAIS, that I don’t know where I’ll be after graduation or even after lunch today.
The Class of 2015 bloggers at the beginning of the year.
Knowing where one will be in the physical sense is admittedly tricky. Especially at Hopkins, there are so many paths to take and so many places to explore that I’m quite certain you can go wherever you want. The bloggers at Hopkins Interactive will be spread all over this world this summer. JHU_Tess is going to be in London, JHU_Kate in France, JHU_Lauren in Africa, JHU_Ian in Italy, JHU_Erica, JHU_Allysa, and JHU_Cate in California. I have little doubt that when we all arrived at this school we never imagined where we would be physically this summer, but I think we all knew mentally where we were heading next and knew that by coming to Hopkins we were already there. We knew that by going to this school we were going to be mentally ready for anything that came our way. We knew that no matter where we ended up, we were going to try our damnest to be successful. We knew that wherever we went, we’d be able to take our experiences at Hopkins and know that regardless of how often our physical location changed, we’d always be able to say, “Mentally, I’m already where I want to be.”
Watching "A Very Potter Musical" during Intersession.
The thought of leaving the security of the Homewood Campus for Washington, D.C. so early has definitely made these last few weeks of classes much more poignant. This is not just the last Arabic class of my freshman year, it is the last time I will sit in a Homewood classroom for at least ten months. The night of watching Rome with my friends wasn’t just the last time we’ll hang out freshman year, but the last time I’ll live in the same building with them for at least ten months, maybe even until our junior year. By the time I’ll come back to campus, the Brody Learning Center will be done, my friends and I will have to look at apartments, and I’ll officially have to declare my major.
So, to all the people along the way that made this year what it was – my friends at Hopkins and from back home, my professors who asked me what a girl from Las Vegas was doing on the East Coast, my teammates and coworkers who didn’t let me quit, my family who went months without seeing me, a certain mayor of NYC who gave me the scholarship that allowed me to come here in the first place, the team of SAABers who picked me to share my stories – thank you.
I guess I’ve almost survived my freshman year of college. There’s still quite a bit of moving around to do in my future. I stepped into the Road last August by coming to Hopkins, and there is no telling where I’ll be swept off into. Going out your door, going across the country for college, and going across the world for a summer are all dangerous businesses because there’s a chance the adventure might not go as planned. Maybe you don’t go to your first-choice college. Maybe you get homesick because you haven’t seen your family in four months. Maybe you don’t speak the language or know the culture. Maybe you don’t know where the Road is taking you.
But maybe that’s what makes it interesting. Maybe all the pressure and all the work and all the nights you spend wondering what the heck is going to happen next make you mentally strong to the point where no matter where you are, you’re always exactly where you’ve always wanted to be: ready for a challenge.
“At dusk the three of us encountered an elderly lady and her beagle hiking toward us. Teetering along on a walking stick, she wore a motoring cap and held a bunch of wildflowers. I said hello and asked her where she was going. She replied in Welsh, ‘Rydw i yna yn barod.’ We looked to Erica for a translation. ‘She said, “I’m already there.”’”
-“A Ramble in Wales,” from National Geographic Traveler
